British welterweight Dan Hardy has given the strongest indication yet that he will retire from the sport in the next 12 months.

Hardy is due to face Matt Brown in his next appearance inside the Octagon at UFC on Fox 7, which takes place on April 20 in San Jose, California.

The Nottingham native has won his last two bouts on the spin but, after a poor overall run of results prior to that, a heavy defeat to the American could see Hardy finally call time on his MMA career - after admitting he has grown tired of some aspects of the sport.

"I'm ready for a new challenge, I'll be honest," Hardy told MMA Junkie. "There are a lot of things about this sport that I love, and a lot of things about this sport that I don't like at all."

Hardy is expected to fight on for at least one contest beyond the meeting with Brown - but has revealed that he gained a greater perspective about his future ambitions during a four-fight losing streak between 2010 and mid-2012.

"Martial arts for me has always been a tool to understand myself a little more, and it's getting to the stage where it's run its course now," Hardy added. "The structure the sport has taken on is taking away from that for me, and I think I'm best served to be somewhere else in the future."

He added: "I'll never be away from the gym for too long. I couldn't walk away from it entirely.

"I just think there's a time to review where you're at and see what you want to do with the rest of your life, and I think in that two years when I was losing, I had a lot of time to do that, and I made plans for the future that I was excited about.

"Now, I've got a second chance at my UFC career, and I'm going to run at it and see what happens after it."